“The test,” Mark said out loud.

“Mark!” his mother shouted at him.  “Get over here now!”

Mark hesitated because he really wanted to go down to the basement floor.

“Mark!””  It was his Dad.

  “The test,” the voice in his head said.  He looked at his Dad and decided to walk back to his parents.  He walked slowly and wondered what the voice in his head meant.  He had rejoined his parents.

  “Since you cannot listen to simple instructions,” his Mother bent down and looked at him face-to-face. “You can take your brother and sit in the car.”

  Mark nodded and led his brother back to the car.  He opened the back door and his brother climbed inside.  Mark got in and sat beside him and closed the car door.

  He was back, as an adult again, standing, with his hand on the window and the image of that old car faded from sight and the window shimmered again.

  “Wow,” he said out loud.  “That was intense!”

  He walked to his desk and sat down to look at his computer screen.  The last line displayed was, “I took my brother to the car and I pouted in the back seat until my mean parents returned.”

  It was different!  He hadn’t broken his arm!  He felt his arm as if feeling it would verify that it was never broken in a fall into an unfinished basement but deep inside he knew.

His daughter was right.  It seems that one could go back in time and change it.  What did she say?  Be careful?  Stay away?  No, he needed more information.  He wondered who made that window.  He knew the house was built in the 30s and here he is living in it, 90 years later.  How is he supposed to find out?  I wonder if I could look up any township history about it.  He placed his fingers on the keyboard, hit a few keys and returned to the search engine.  He typed Cecil Burgos in the search bar and hit enter.  A series of choices appeared, and Mark sighed in frustration.  He retyped Cecil Burgos, 1930, and hit the enter key again.  As a new set of choices appeared the one that caught his eye was one that was titled, Cecil Burgos, Founding Father of the Knights of North County, found dead.  He clicked on the link and the screen revealed a newspaper article.

  It was from the St. Louis Globe Democrat, dated April 17, 1940.  He began to read the article, Cecil Burgos, well-respected entrepreneur and landowner in Spanish Lake, was found dead in his home Thursday, April 16 by his wife, Brenda.  St. Louis County police are looking into his death as mysterious.  Mr. Burgos was the leader of a group of landowners in the area known as the Knights of North County whose goal is to provide affordable housing to everyone.  The group is also suspected of using the occult to further their agenda.

  Mark grabbed a pen and made a note, Knights of North County, and then selected the back arrow using his mouse on the computer screen.  He scrolled down and found another article related to Cecil Burgos.  He selected it and the screen displayed another article from the St. Louis Globe Democrat dated May 23, 1940.  The headline read Cecil Burgos Death by Natural Causes.   The St. Louis County Coroner, Dr. William Schroeder, wrote in his final report that Mr. Burgos died of natural causes.  St. Louis County Police announced that due to the coroner’s report, they were closing the investigation into his death.  Mrs. Burgos stated there will be a private funeral service, and a public memorial service is being planned for a later date.

   Mark, once again, returned and searched through the list and found the obituary for Cecil Burgos and brought it up and began to read –

  Cecil Burgos, born September 16, 1882, died April 16, 1940 at the age of 57 years old.  Mr. Burgos was the only child of Robert and Elizabeth (nee Smith).  He is survived by his wife. Brenda (nee Soft Shoe) and five children, Matthew, Michael, Sheryl, Sally, and Kimberly.

  Mr. Burgos was known for converting his family’s vast farmland and dividing it into smaller tracts of land that is currently being developed into tract housing units in the unincorporated north county area known as Spanish Lake.  He founded a group with other north county landowners that became known as The Knights of North County, key drivers in redeveloping the North County area.  The funeral services will be private, and a public memorial service will be held Saturday, June 1, 1940, 1:00 p.m., at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church on Trampe Avenue.

  Mark jotted down Cecil’s parent’s name and the names of his children on another Post-it.  He returned his computer to the previous screen and typed in a new search for Robert Burgos of Spanish Lake. The only item that appeared for him was his obituary and Mark clicked the link. 

  The obit was surprisingly brief.  Robert Burgos of Spanish Lake, born January 4, 1865, died December 31, 1945 is survived by his wife, Elizabeth (nee Whittaker) and was the father of the late Cecil Burgos.  Robert was a member of the Knights of North County.  His funeral service will be at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church on Trampe Avenue at 10:00 a.m.

  There it is again, The Knights of North County.  Who are The Knights of North County?  He wondered if there was any information about them, so he typed in the search field and pressed the Enter key.  Another list of choices appeared on the screen.  There was a Wikipedia entry that he read first, The Knights of North County, founded in 1931, a group of landowners in north St. Louis County that focused on redeveloping farmland into affordable housing subdivisions.  The group consisted of farmers, contractors and realtors.  While they offered good housing, it was widely believed they were in it for the money and their success was attributed to their supposed relationship to the occult.  They were founded by three individuals, Cecil Burgos, the chosen leader of the families who owned a majority of the farmland. Richard Moses, the owner and operator of Moses Contracting and Construction, and Lindsey Morgan, the leader of a group realtors in north county known as the NC Realtor Group.  The recorded membership of The Knights of North County, at one time, was twelve.

  Mark added the names of Richard and Lindsey to his list and went back to the list of entries about the group.  His eyes fell on another article, this one was from the other major newspaper in St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  He selected it and began to read –

  “Spanish Lake June 13, 1964.  The Knights of North County Officially Break Ground by C. Simon.

  The Knights of North County have started the largest housing development in the St. Louis area today.  The confusion of city/county politics has allowed a loophole granting tax relief to allow the development to begin.  The foresight of The Knights in encouraging growth of the region anticipated the need for housing.  The area bordered by Columbia Bottoms Road to the east along the Mississippi River to Spanish Pond Road to the north, Bellefontaine road to the west and Hall Avenue to the south was purchased by the group in 1931.  The first subdivision being built is west of Larimore Road, just northwest of Coal Bank Road, in a triangular piece of land that follow the Quincy Railroad Line.

  “It is exciting day for North County and Spanish Lake in particular, as we begin the construction of affordable housing for young families.  We, too, are excited to finally begin the project,” Michael Burgos, the spokesman of the group stated.  “My father, Cecil Burgos, and his partners, Richard Moses, and Lindsey Morgan, the founders of our group, would be extremely proud that their vision will become reality.”

  The scene wasn’t all joy as there were a few people holding signs and chanting against the Knights.  Mr. Thomas, a spokesman of the group, stated, “The Knights of North County should be called The Witches of North County.  You guys need to look closer at what they are all about.”

  Our research has not found any information to confirm that claim.

  Mark sat back in his chair, rolling over the little bit of information in his mind.  He needed to talk to someone, but who?  An idea creeped into his mind and he sat up straight.  What if he asked the exact source?  What if he went back in time and asked Mr. Thomas himself?

To be continued…

Mark walked into the house and went into the kitchen expecting to see Terri but was disappointed when she wasn’t there.  He walked into the dining room and looked out into the backyard.  There she was kneeling in the garden apparently adding or subtracting from it.  He knocked on the window and she turned to look at him.  She had her straw hat on, and she waved.  He waved back at her and watched as she returned her attention to her garden.  He went upstairs to his office and sat down at his chair.  He placed his hands behind his head and looked at the circle window.  It looked like an ordinary window and he wondered why it is really an extraordinary window.  He shook his head as he recalled his daughter’s story.  What if he performed a test on himself and see what would happen if he changed the event.  But which event?

  He leaned forward, opened his laptop and the screensaver of his grandkids appeared.  He moved his mouse and the password bar appeared and he typed it.  His word document appeared of the story he was writing about himself.  He reread his account of his birth and smiled.  What was the first event he can recall?  His mind went back to the time they moved from Columbia to St. Louis.  They were going to live in a new subdivision being built in North St. Louis County and they went to visit the construction site.  He had an accident falling into the basement foundation and broke his arm.  He decided that was the event he was going to test.  He began to type and add the details of the event. 

There were dirt piles behind the concrete foundation and me and my brother took turns rolling down them.  We would get up and run back to the top of the mound and do it again.  We were laughing with each tumble when our Mom yelled at us to stop and join her.  She and Dad were talking to a man about the house and they were standing beside the foundation of our soon-to-be home We were covered in dirt and she was aggravated as she brushed the dirt from our clothes.

I stepped back and tripped over a piece of rebar lying near the hole and I fell into it. 

  The last line he typed was “I broke my left arm and my parents had to find a local hospital to take me there.”

  Mark rose from the desk and walked to the circle window.  He looked to it and saw the rooftops and trees below his house.  He closed his eyes, thought of the memory, and reopened them.  The window shimmered.  He reached out and touched the glass.  He was immediately riding in a car, standing in the front seat, between his parents. In his mother’s lap, his little brother Bill, was sitting.  He looked out the windshield to see them driving down a road heading up to a railroad crossing.  There were no cars in front of them but ahead of them, train signals were flashing bright red light and he heard the warning bells ringing loud and clear.  They slowed and waited as the train whizzed by.  It was a long train and he watched the colors of the cars melt together.  He began to listen to his parents as they talked over him.

  “I think this is exciting, honey.  Our own home.  I am so happy,” his Mother was saying.

  “Well, we needed a bigger place,” his Dad said to her.  “Our family is growing, you know.”

  “I know.  I sure hope it is a girl this time.”

  “Actually,” Dad told her. “Me, too.  And the house should be done before then.”

  “I wonder how far they are right now?” she asked him.

  “Not much farther.  I think they told me they were only through with the foundation.”

  “What was the name of our street again?,” she asked him.

  “Congress, honey, Congress,” Dad said as he waved to the guy in the caboose.  The man waved back.

  “Why did you do that, Dad?”

  “Do what, son?”

  “Wave to that man,” Mark asked his father.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said as he slowly moved the car over the train tracks. 
Just to be nice, I guess.”

  A small farm was just past the track on the left and a small vegetable stand stood nearby.  A woman was driving a small tractor pulling a cart full of boxes.  She wore a straw hat and waved to them.  Mark waved back.

  “We will have to stop on our way back to see what they have,” Mom said.

  They drove a little bit further and passed a road that had a gas station with a green dinosaur sign out front.  A few cars were there as Mark looked at it as they passed it.  A small square building stood beside it.  It had a red and white lamp hanging near the front door.

  “Oh, loo, honey,” Mom exclaimed.  “A barbershop!  You could take the boys there.”

  “Maybe,” Dad said as Mark noticed street signs appearing on the left side of the car but there weren’t any houses.  “Here is our neighborhood.”

  They passed a few of the signs when his Mother called out, “Congress!”

  Dad turned the car left on to the street.  On both sides of the street, houses were in various states of construction but none of them were in a state where one could say it was a house.  They continued to drive and as the road started to curve to the left, he slowed the car until he stopped in front of a small sign with the numbers 140.

  “140,” Mom said.  “That is our new address, 140 Congress Avenue.  Mark, you are going to have to learn that when we really move here so you will never get lost.”

  “Do you know what 160 means, Mark?  Of course you don’t.  It means our house in part of tract 1 and it is the 40^th house being built,” his Dad added.  Mark just smiled.

  They all emptied from the car, the four of them stood looking at a hole in the ground.  A car pulled behind them and a man in a blue suit emerged from it.

  “Hello Morrisons!  What do you think of your new home.  Are you ready to move in?” he said as he approached them.

  “Sure,” Mom said back to him.  “I am ready to move!”

  “Me,” Dad said.  “I’d like to see more of a house first.”

  The three of them laughed and Mark decided to take a walk around the hole.  Andy followed him close behind.

  “Be careful, Mark!” Mom called out. “And watch your brother.”

  Mark responded by stopping and waiting until his brother was next to him.  He looked into the hole which was four sides of cement walls with pieces of lumber wedged from the concrete floor to each wall.  One piece of lumber was wide enough and reached to the top of the end wall.  that he thought he could walk down to the floor and he headed for it.

  “Mark!” Andy called out just then and he turned toward him.  “Look at all the mountains!”

  There, behind the hole in the ground, several piles of dark brown dirt emerged from their backyard.  Mark smiled and went to join his brother.  He was stopped in his tracks by a searing pain in his head.  He closed his eyes and slowly opened them.  The landscape seemed brighter to him.  It was the same.  Dirt piles, his brother running toward them and he was following him.  He stopped again as the image change and he could see a tree growing in the corner of the lot that was surrounded by a chain link fence.  He turned slowly around and where the hole in the ground was now his home.  It was rectangular in shape and the backdoor had a metal awning above it beneath three steps of concrete.  His Mom was sitting there, watching him, and smoking a cigarette.  He closed his eyes and opened them.  The hole in the ground was there again.  He shook his head,

  “Mark!” Andy yelled at him. “Let’s go up again.”

  He looked down at himself.  He was covered in dirt.  His blue jeans were muddier at the knees because he went up the hills on his hands and knees.

  “Boys!” his Mo yelled.  “Come here now!”

  Andy rolled down the hill he was on top of, laughing all the way down.  Mark waited for him and they walked to their Mom.  She scolded them as she swatted at the dirt on their clothes.  After she had finished, Mark barely heard her tell them to stay close.  He looked down the hole and wondered what it would be like to be on the floor.  He started to walk around the pit toward the board he remembered reached the floor.  He stood at its top and he heard a voice.  He looked behind him but saw nothing.  He returned to stare at the board that led down to the basement floor.  He heard the voice again, much clearer now, and he knew it was inside him.  It simply said. “Remember the test.’

To be continued…

Mark arrived at the McDonald’s that his daughter directed him to and got in line to place their order.  The one thing he had in common with her was a good Big Mac.  He smiled to himself because he was working at a McDonald’s when Big Mac’s arrived on the scene.  The training video included the jingle that was used to advertise it; two all—beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.  That was the exact way he used to put it together.  The only thing that gets to him when there is too much lettuce.  He also loved their Fish sandwich with extra tartar sauce.

  He walked the tray with their food on it to the soft drink island to get two diet Dr. Pepper’s, straws, and ketchup and to a table in the corner.  He sat so he could see Marie enter the building.  He opened a pair of napkins and spread one in front of him and the other on the opposite side, a habit his wife taught him, and places a medium bag of fries on each one.  He added a Big Mac box beside each of them, his fish box on t the top of his, and leaned back against the seat. 

  Mark tried not to think about what he was meeting her here for, but he couldn’t help it.  The circle window was all consuming especially that he now knew what IDAN meant TIME and he, somehow, he went back into time, to his birthday.  Sounds like a Stephen King novel.  A funny thought wrinkled into his mind and he wondered why he hadn’t wondered about it before, what is Marie about to tell him?  A dark blue, almost black Jeep drove past the door and he sat up straighter.  His daughter would be joining him momentarily.

  When she opened the door and looked around, Mark waved at her and she smiled and waved back.  She hurried through a few tables and scooted into the booth across from him.

  “Hi, Dad,”  she looked at him closely, as she always did, to assess if he was feeling all right.  “I only have a little time because of class if you don’t mind.  Thanks for getting me a Big Mac.”

  “Always,” Mark said watching his daughter open her Big Mac box.  “Ok, since you don’t have a lot of time, tell me what you know about the circle window and time.”

  She took a bite of her sandwich and Mark started in on his fries, you have to eat them hot, so he always started on them first.

  “Why?”  she took a second bite from her sandwich.

  “I went on a visit to my birthday,” Mark told her watching her closely.

   She looked at him and took a sip from her drink.

  “Dr. Pepper but diet, Dad, really?” Marie returned the drink to the table and took a few fries from her bag.  “I liked my bed under the window for a reason, now you know why. My first time –“

  “First time?”

  “Yes, my first time I only went back a few hours.  I had a fight with Sue, you remember her, don’t you?  She was my best friend in sixth grade.  I told her that I like Michael Moore and she went and told him.  I was so mad and said some pretty ugly things to her.  I was looking out the window and wishing I could go back and never told her I liked him, and we wouldn’t have had that fight.  The window kind of shimmered and I reached out to touch the glass and the next thing I knew I was back out on the playground, leaning on the big slide and there was Sue.  She was looking at me funny and she said, well?  I asked her, well what?  Do you like any of the boys? She said to me and I realized I was back at the point where I told her I liked Mike, so I didn’t, and we didn’t have that fight.  The bell rang and when I touched the door to go back inside, I was standing on my bed looking out the window.”

  Mark had finished his fries as he listened to her.  She looked back at him in silence.

  “I used the window a lot but never to hurt someone.  I changed some things where I had gotten myself into some trouble and redid it.  It was funny that you and Mom would ground me and a few minutes later, or so it seemed, you never knew it happened.  But I never forgot, I always knew.”

  “Like what did you have to undo?” Mark leaned back.

  Marie looked at him and put her Big Mac down on the napkin.

  “One time, I was in high school and snuck out to a party that Billy Smith had at his house by the pond.  It was winter and we built a bonfire.  Some people skated and an older kid brought some beer and I got drunk.  I just walked over there so when I walked back I was getting sick.  When I tried to sneak back into the house, I threw up on the back porch and I woke you guys up.  The boys thought it was so funny and Mom was crying, and you were so mad.  You grounded me for a month.”

  “I don’t remember that,” Mark stared at her.

  Marie picked up her drink, took another sip from it and said, “I know.  I did things like that, go back and retake a test, replay a softball game.  One time I had such a good time on a date, I simply went back to redo it without even changing it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  “You are kidding me.  It was great!  I never  got in any big trouble, got better grades when I need to, kept my friends longer but I stopped when I went to college.  No, that’s not right.  I tried using it one time when I returned home that first year.  I went back to redo a test I wanted to do better at but I was going there to take it and I changed my mind because I was afraid of how it might change things too much after the test.”

  “What would have changed?”  Mark asked.

  “I had met my future husband.”

  Mark nodded and opened his Big Mac.  “Speaking of future, could you go into the future?”

  “No.  Only the past.  Your past.  You simply had to think of the time you wanted to visit and then you touch the widow and it off you go.  And too get back, you think about going back and the next door you pen, you are back in that room.  Why did you go back to your birthday?” Marie asked.

  “I was thinking about it and I stepped into a hospital room wearing a white coat and my Mom was laying in a bed.  I opened the door and I was back in the room.  I did it again but went into a car in front of a department store and ran across your aunt there.  I caused enough ruckus that she remembered a man in the store the day I was born.”

  “Dad,” Marie interrupted him, I got to go back to school.  Don’t do it again until we can talk more about it,” Marie slid out of the booth and stood up.  “Promise.”

  “Promise,” Mark agreed.

  “Okay,” Marie bent and kissed him on the cheek.  “See you later.  The girls are fine when Mom asks, and you report into her later.”

  He watched her walk back using the same route she used when she had arrived.

  “Marie!” he shouted.

  She turned and looked at him, waiting.

  “Did you tell anyone about it?  Your brothers?”

  “No, Dad, why would I?”

To be continued…

Mark woke up and wondered if he had dreamed it all.  He was in bed alone as he knew he would be.  Terri was already up and running into her day.  The curtain to their one and only bedroom window was pulled back and the room was bright with early morning light.  He sat up in bed and pulled the blanket around his chin.  How could he go back in time to the day he was born through a window?  He must have been told that story about Lilly’s Department Store and dreamed it was him in that store.  That’s what it had to be.  Had to be.  But it seemed so real.  He decided to get up and take a shower.  He pushed the blanket aside, stood beside the bed, and pulled the blanket toward him.  He went around to the other side of the bed, pulled the blanket tight, and smoothed it out.  He fluffed up Terri’s pillow and went around the bed again to his side and fluffed his pillow.  He smiled to himself and looked at the bedcover that was carefully folded on the end of the bed.  It had become a habit of his, and Terri’s, that whoever got up last would straighten the bed so that the first one up could finish it.  He thought about doing the finishing-up- job but left it where it was and went into the bathroom.

  He went directly to the shower and turned it on.  He removed his pajamas, tossed them into the clothes hamper in the corner and sat on the toilet.  He stood, flushed, waited for the toilet to fill, and then stepped into the shower.  The water was perfect, and he let it run over him, soaking his hair.  He wondered about the circle window again and those symbols around its rim, IDAN, over and over again.  First, how did he not see them before and how long had they been there?  He reached forward, grabbed his two-in-one shampoo and conditioner, poured some into his hand, and plopped it on the top of his head.

  Dressed and freshly shaven, Mark walked into the kitchen and found it empty.  A small skillet was on the stove.  Two eggs and an empty glass were sitting on the counter on top of a sheet of paper.  He smiled to himself as he read the note scribbled on the paper – You took too long, make your own! Love ya loads, T.  He opened the fridge and took out the orange juice and butter.  He decided the two eggs would be over easy and as they sizzled in the butter, he planned his day.  He was going to call Marie first and ask her about the window and then do some research about what that word means.  He flipped the eggs over as he continued to plan.  After his research, then he was going to his office and…write or check out that window.  He pulled the skillet from the stove and turned off the burner.  He slid them on to his plate and sat at the kitchen table with his glass of juice.  He stood again, pulled his phone out of his front pocket and sat down again.  He cut up the eggs, mixed the yolk with the white, leaned over and took a bite.  He took a sip from the glass, cleared his throat while he pressed the button on the phone and said, “Call Best Daughter.”  He pressed the speaker button that appeared on the screen and listened to the phone ring.  It didn’t take long.

  “You do know what time it is?” the voice said.

  “No, I don’t,” Mark answered her.  “How is the best daughter ever?”

  “Busy.  I am running late.  What do you want?”  Marie asked.

  “Real quick then.  Do you know anything about the circle window in your bedroom?”

  There was a silence and Mark wondered if he had somehow pressed a button to disconnect her.

  “What do you mean, Dad?” her voice was more serious.

  “I made the room into my office and I decided to start writing a book.  I was looking out the window for inspiration and something weird happened,” he explained to her.

  More silence from the other end of the line.

  “Marie?” he asked.

  “I’m here.  Can you do lunch today?”

  “Sure.  Where?” he asked her.

  “How about that McDonald’s across the street from my school at 11:30?” Marie offered.

  “Okay, I’ll see you then.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Does Mom know?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Good. See you later,” she said and disconnected.

  Mark put the phone on the table, leaned forward and took another bite of his egg.  He rolled the conversation over again in his mind.  What a strange one it was, and he wondered what else he was going to learn at lunch.  He pressed the button on his phone and the time appeared on it, 7:12 a.m.  About four hours before he knows anything more from his daughter.  He pressed and held the button again, and said, “What does IDAN mean?”

  A voice responded “Aydan is a Gaelic boy’s name that means fire…”

  “What?” Mark looked down at the phone that saw the printout of the voice’s message that it had used Aydan instead of IDAN.  He grabbed the phone and accessed the menu He found the icon with G and pressed it.  When the search field appeared, he typed in the question, what does IDAN mean?.  The response appeared and he read, Idan is a boy’s name of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Idan is “era, time”.

  “Time,” Mark said out loud.  “Now, that is interesting.”

  He finished his egg, swallowed down the remainder of the orange juice, and placed the dishes along with the skillet into the sink.  He knew that he would be talked to about leaving them there.  He went upstairs to his room and went directly to the window.  The view was the same as he saw the bright sunlight cast shadows from his left to right.  He noticed a bus slow and stop at the corner of his street and the side street.  A few children boarded it.  The bus rolled down a block and more children boarded it there.

  Mark turned his attention to the window frame.  He looked more closely at the etching and noted that the letters themselves were well shaped and not simply scratched into the surface and they seemed to be burned into it.  He touched it again and it felt smooth.  He thought that was strange because it looked like he should be able to feel the edges of the letters.  He moved his finger to the top of the frame to feel the symbol that he thought it was a compass.  He pulled back his finger in surprise.  He returned his fingers to the symbol again and carefully felt the ridges if the compass.  Unlike the letter, he could feel the lines of the eight directions distinctly and he could follow each line to the arrow tip at the end.  The arrow tip at the top felt deeper than the rest of the symbol and he thought that this tip was the first lines carved into the frame.

  He stepped back and wondered what does this mean?  Did he really go into the window into the past?  And, most importantly, where in the world does he find out?

To be continued…

Mark rose from his chair and examined the window closer than he had ever done before.  The diameter of the circle was about three feet making its circumference about nine feet.  A double pane of glass fitted within the circled frame and it appeared to be simple and plain.  He had painted the frame a dark brown because he thought the color made it look masculine against the white wall around the window.  Something caught his eye and he paused.  There was something etched into the inside edge of the frame.  He removed his cell phone from his pocket and instinctively pressed the flashlight icon.  Instantly, a light lit up the edge of the frame. 

  Small letters appeared and they looked like they had been carved into the wood with a penknife.  He reached up and felt them with his finger.  The wood felt smooth to his touch, confusing him, but he could definitely see letters etched into it.  He slowly ran the light around the circle.  He saw that the letters repeated and at the top and center of the circle, a small symbol divided the groupings of letters.  Mark looked closer at the letters, and going clockwise, it appeared that the series of letters that repeated was IDAN.  He stood up and looked out the window at the rooftops. 

  “IDAN?” he said.  “IDAN? I wonder what that means?”

  He went back to his desk and pulled a Post-It Note pad from the center drawer.  He wrote IDAN and put the note on the top right corner of his computer screen.  He pulled a second sheet from the note pad and went back to the window.  He turned on the flashlight again and focused it on the symbol at the top of circle.  It appeared to look like a plus sign on top of the letter X.  The tips of every line were arrows.  There were eight points of the shape and it looked familiar to him.  He quickly made a sketch of the symbol on the Post-It he had brought with him and returned to his desk.  He looked at his sketch and tried to figure it what it reminded him of.  He turned it clockwise until it was upright again.  It looked the same to him in all directions.  He got up and returned to the window.  He turned on the flashlight again and he looked closer at the symbol.  He realized the arrow that pointed straight up was taller than the rest and he suddenly knew what the symbol represented.  He hurried back to his desk and, scribbling below the sketch he wrote, compass.

  “Why a compass?” Mark said out loud.  “A compass is a symbol to indicate direction on a map.  Why is there a compass on a window?  Why is anything on that window?  How come I didn’t notice them before?  You are forgetting the weirder thing, Mark, and that is, how did you get through the window, into the past, to your actual birthday?”

  Mark sat down again and looked at what he had typed .  It was so simple.  He had only typed his story outline.  He wondered if that birthday event really happened with his Aunt Beth.  I guess he is going to have to do some research.  He picked up his phone again, looked at his list of contacts and quickly found the entry for Aunt Beth.  The phone rang and was answered on the third one.

  “Hello,” a female voice answered.

  Aunt Beth still lived in Columbia having married Robert, Bob, Steele who she had met at a Farmer’s Market in the nearby town of Candlelight.  They had three children, his cousins, all girls, Billie, Amber, and Lucy.  Billie is the oldest and the one closest in age to Mark.  She was named Billie because Uncle Bob wanted his first born to be a boy.

  “Aunt Beth,” he spoke into the phone.  “It’s your nephew Mark.  How are you doing?”

  “Mark!  How are you?  When are you and Terri coming down to see us?  It has been a while.”

  “You are right, Aunt Beth.  We do owe you a visit.  Listen, I have retired.”

  “Good for you dear.  You will have a lot more fun now.  No worries, no cares  but you have to keep yourself busy.  Find a hobby.  That’s what I did.  I started a garden,”  she advised him.

  “Yes and that is is why I am calling.  I have always wanted to write so I have decided to write my memoirs, more or less, for the kids,” Mark said.

  “Oh, good for you,” she interrupted.

  “Well, I am calling you to see if you can tell me anything about that the day I was born.”

  “Well,” she paused, and he could hear a chair squeak on the other end of the line. “I think I do.  You are my first nephew you know.  The day you were born, it was a hot August day.  Your mom went int the hospital the day before expecting a quick delivery and you weren’t.  Your Dad was going nuts.”

  “I bet he was,” Mark encouraged her as he listened to her giggle at the memory.

  “I remember getting a phone call early in the morning.  I was already up getting dressed because I had to go to work.  It was Mary and she was crying on the phone as she told me she just had you thirty minutes earlier.  I wanted to go see you right away, but she said she was tired and hadn’t even told your dad yet.  She asked that I let our family know and set it up for all of us to visit that evening.  When we did go, the hospital wasn’t the same.  What a party that was!”

  “Really?  I can only imagine,” Mark said as he picked up a pen and began to make some notes.  “What did you do before then?  Did you go to work?”

  “Hmmm, I think I did.  I was excited to tell my co-workers about you.  Yes, we went to see you at lunch through the maternity window where al the babies were on display.  I forgot all about that.”

  “Aunt Beth, do you remember where you worked?” Mark asked.  He didn’t know why but he was nervous about what her answer might be.

  “Yes, it was Lilly’s Boutique on Main Street in old Columbia.  That’s right, I was working there for the summer before I went to college.  I remember now.  I was working with Marilyn and Lilly.

  Mark took a deep breath and asked, ”What were they like?”

  “They were nice.  Marilyn was my age and blond like me, or like I was.  I am so white headed now it is hard for me to remember what color my hair was before.  Anyway, Lilly was the daughter of the owner and the store was named for her.  She was a little older than us and she was a redhead.  I would say she was very definitely the leader of the three of us.”

  Mark was getting anxious as what he had seen earlier was beginning to be described by is aunt.

  “Something weird happened that day,” she said and the hair on Mark’s arm began to rise.  “I was late to work that day and was telling them why, the phone call from your mother about you, when this guy emerged from an aisle, looked at us, and tumbled out the door.  It was very bizarre.  But what really is weird, Mark, is that I didn’t remember that until just now.”

  “Really?” Mark stammered.  “You didn’t remember that happening until just now?”

  “Yeah, like it just happened today, but back then.  Weird, huh?” she said, and Mark heard a voice in the background.  “Oh. I am sorry, Mark.  Ron is calling me for something.  I got to go, talk to you later?”

  “Of course, Aunt Bath.  Talk to you later,”  Mark said and disconnected the phone.

  He held the phone and stared at the screen of his laptop.  He didn’t know what to do or what to believe.  Aunt Bath just confirmed that he was in Lilly’s Department Store the day he was born.  But how could that be?  He got up from his desk, walked to the circle window, and touched the glass. 

To be continued…

“Excuse me?”  his mother said to him.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Mark said, and he went back out the door.

  He was back in his room with his hand on the window.  He pulled his hand away, raised it to eye level and stared at it. 

  “What was that?” he whispered to no one but himself.  “What was that?”

  He put his hand down and began to pace around the room.  He walked to the desk, sat back in his chair, and stared into the computer.  The page on the screen stared back at him and he read what he had written;  ‘I was born on Sunday, August 7, 1955 in Columbia, Missouri in a hospital called Boone County.  I was told that it was a balmy ninety-two degrees at 7:00 a.m. at the same time I erupted into the world.’

  Mark looked back at the circle window and stood up.  He didn’t move but looked through it and to see the familiar scene of his neighbor’s rooftops.  He stepped around his desk and walked up to it, never moving his eyes from the scene.  The glass shimmered and he paused.  The shimmering stopped.  Maybe, he thought to himself, the shimmering was caused by his footsteps causing vibrations up the wall shaking the window glass.  It shimmered again.  He didn’t move but the scene in the window morphed, reshaped and he was looking at Lilly’s Department Store again.  He stepped forward, placed his hand on the window and he heard a small click.  He pushed it open and stepped through the opening a second time.

  Mark found himself stepping out of a car that was parked in front of the department store.  He turned to look at the car as he closed the car door.  It was definitely an older car, huge and heavy, and multi-colored.  A light blue-green on the hood and the lower half of the door panels with white across the hood and tops of the door panels to the trunk.  The colors were divided with a strip of chrome running from the front to the back of the car.  He walked toward the front and noticed a small medallion that had a three pointed crown on top of a three colored base of blue, green and red.  It is centered in a dip of the chrome that reminded him of the letter V at the front of the car door.  Quite fancy, he thought as he continued walking around the front of the car. 

  “Wow,” Mark said to himself.  “Nice car.”

  He stood in front of it looking at it head on.  The headlights were huge, round, and looked almost bug-eyed.  An identical medallion to the one on the car door was centered on the hood just above the scripted name of the car, Fairlane.

  “What’s the matter, mister? You don’t know what car you are driving?” a voice yelled.

  He turned to see a group of three boys riding their bicycles behind him on the sidewalk.  They laughed and scattered down the road.  He shook his head.  What is going on?  He looked at the store window staring at him.  It was Lilly’s and, from what he could determine, it was a clothing store for women.  He didn’t know why but he had a feeling that he needed to go inside.

  Mark pulled the door open and a bell jingled over his head as he paused to look around the store.  Spaced sporadically around the room, round displays of clothing hung from hangers.  To his left, boxes of shoes were neatly displayed in small compartments behind a few displays of the latest shoe styles tempting buyers to buy.  At the rear of the room, beneath a small, round clock displaying ten minutes to ten, a glass cabinet held, what he thought might be, jewelry.  He was too far away to see the items in the case but, somehow, he knew what it was like he had been there before.  Three women were gathered at the corner of the glass case next to a small, cash register.  Two were blond and the remaining one was a redhead.  They all wore their hair short that showed off large, shiny earrings.  They all wore dresses, too, that were long and colorful.  The redhead turned toward him.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “No, thank you.  I’m just looking for a birthday present for my wife,” Mark said as he walked toward the shoes.

  “Well, let me know if you need anything,” she said and turned back toward the other two women to continue their conversation.

  Mark walked around the room, first, looking at the shoes, which happened to be next to a few aisles of accessories; purses and wallets.  He was hidden from their view and he began to pick-up pieces of their conversation.

  “So your sister finally had her baby this morning?” the redhead asked the woman he couldn’t quite see from where he stood.

  “Yes,” he heard the response. “She called me this morning and that was why I was late today.”

  Mark silently moved so that he could see the woman who was talking.  She was the smaller of the two blonds who was talking as the other two that were gathered around her.  She must be the one whose sister just had the baby.  He still couldn’t see her as he was partially blocked from seeing her by the back of the redhead.

  “What are his specifics?” the redhead asked her.

  “Well, he was born…”

  “It is a boy!” the other blond squealed at her side, clapping as she did so.

  “Yes,” the woman continued.  “He was born exactly at 7:00 a.m..  My sister told me he weighed in at exactly seven pounds, seven ounces and is twenty-four inches long.  I can’t wait to see him tonight.”

  “Not until tonight?” the other blond whined at her.

  “No, they want her to rest for a bit before she gets visitors,” the speaker said.

  “Too bad.  We could have gone at lunch,” the blond remarked.

  “Amy! I am sure we couldn’t have seen her sister,” the redhead scolded her friend.  “But why couldn’t we go and look in at the baby window at lunch. Hey Bethany, what is his name?”

  Mark stood taller then as he strained to see the woman whose sister who just had the baby because he knew the name that was about to be spoken.  The two women in front of her separated just enough for him to see his, much younger, Aunt Beth say, “Mark Allen Morrison.”

  Wide-eyed, he started to step toward the door.  All three women turned to look at him.

  “Sir, do you need some help?” the redhead stepped toward him.

  He just looked at her with his mouth opening and closing, not knowing what to say or do.  He stopped and looked directly at Beth.  She was younger and her blue eyes were as wide as his felt to him and he turned and left the store.  He barely heard the bell jingle as he strode toward the Fairlane.  He opened the car door, sat down, and closed the door.  Something shimmered.

  Mark was standing in his office again staring at the window.  He was looking out at his neighbor’s rooftops again.  His hands went immediately to his head and he vigorously rubbed his hair in bewilderment.

  “I must be going crazy, or dreaming,” he whispered to himself.  “What’s going on?”

To be continued…

As Mark sat down for supper, Terri said, “ So, what are you doing up there?”

  “Writing,” Mark said reaching for the salad bowl that sat on the table between them.

  “Really?  About what?”

  “Well,” Mark forked some of the salad on to his plate. “Me.”

  Terri put her fork down and turned to look at her husband who was sitting beside her.

  “You are writing about yourself,” she said.

  “Yep.  Have you ever wondered what your parents were like when they were growing up or how they got along with their brothers and sisters?  I thought I’d write about that about me for the kids.  What do you think?”

  “I don’t think I would want them to know everything about my past,” Terri said as she picked up her fork and poked at her salad.

  Mark looked at his wife and smiled.  He placed his fork down and leaned back in his chair.  “Do you remember what this table was like when the gang was all here?”

  “Yes,” she smiled at him.  “It was much noisier.  The boys sat on that side of the table and Marie sat where I am now.”

  “You and I were at the ends.  I like this better,”  Mark said as he straightened up.  “But do you know what it was like at the supper table when I was a kid?”

  “Noisier?”

  “Yes!  Noisier.  I mean I did have a few more siblings but it was so much more.  That is when we learned about what was going on in each other’s lives,” Mark said.  He could feel the excitement growing inside him.  “You remember that my Dad smoked.  Well, everyone smoked back.  Anyway, my sister hated that Dad smoked so at one suppertime, she took a straight pins and poked holes in a whole pack of cigarettes.  It was his habit to smoke a cigarette after he ate supper.  That night he kept taking in a puff but stopping when it seemed different to him.  He tried one, put it out in that ash tray my brother made in shop class, and lit another, tried it, put it out, try another.  Finally, he took a look at one closely and looked at my sister.  She looked at him and smiled.  She got up from the table, took her plate, and took it into the kitchen.  He got up and went into the living room, laughing.  Now, the rest of us had no idea what was going on, so my Mom asked my Dad what was so funny?  He turned and laughed again and said, ‘Your daughter is very clever.  She poked holes in all of my cigarettes!’  That caused us all to laugh with him.”

  “I don’t get it,” Terri said to him and poked her fork into her salad.  She looked at him and shrugged.

  “Well, I am not going to tell you,” Mark said to her. “You can google it yourself.”

  “Okay,” she put her fork, full of lettuce, into her mouth.

  Mark settled back into his desk chair after they had finished eating together.  He loaded up the dishwasher and trudged upstairs mulling over a number of ideas on how to tackle writing this memoir for his children.  He leaned back in his chair and waited for his computer to wake-up.  He thought about the cigarette story he told Terri.  The point wasn’t the story, it was more about what his family was like when he was young.  He shook his head.  He needed to get organized.  He leaned forward and typed: 

Outline…

1. Early Years
2. Middle School
3. High School
4. College
5. Love and Marriage
6. Jobs
7. Family

  He stared out the outline and smiled.  Is this how life is earmarked? Is this his life?  A simple outline?  He wasn’t so sure, but he wanted to write his story in some kind of organized fashion.  He reread what he wrote earlier in the day, reviewing it and retyping some of the sentences as he read.  He was ready to talk about his early days.  What was his earlier memory?  He knew the story of how his parents met.  Maybe he should start with that?  He leaned back and placed his hands together behind his head and looked out the circle window.

  It was dark but bright.  The moon was full and bright.  He leaned forward and turned off the lamplight plunging his room into darkness to look out across the rooftops of his neighbor’s homes.  The moonlight cast a white shimmering shine casting black shadows of every chimney and shingle on every roof.  He looked up at the moon.  It was absolute white, and the crevices and pockmarks on its face were visibly seen.  The sky surrounding it looked black as velvet.  He suddenly became aware that he could also see his reflection in the glass of the window.  He looked back at himself and smiled.  The window image responded with a slight shimmer.  He thought a cloud had floated across the face of the moon and leaned forward in an effort to see it.  The moon was as bright as it had been, so he cast his gaze back to the surrounding rooftops.

  “What?” he asked himself in disbelief.

  The landscape had changed.  He was now viewing a small cityscape.  He was now overlooking the main street of some town.  The street was lined with lamplight and the building fronts he could see was a department store called Lilly’s with a windowfront of mannequins dressed in the latest fashion.  It was next to a barbershop.  They were across the street from a bank and hardware store.  Another department store was next to the hardware store, but he couldn’t read the name of it.  As he stared at the scene, trying to make  sense of what he was seeing, the window shimmered again, and now he was racing down the street picking up speed, turning left at the end of it and then right done a different street.  He could make out that it was tree-lined, perhaps a residential area, and turned right again.  The scene suddenly stopped and slowed as it now stood in front of a building with a marquee across of it proclaiming to be the Boone County Hospital.  He knew where he was now.  He was in Columbia, Missouri at the hospital where he was born.  The scene before him dissolved and reappeared in a hospital room.  His mother laying on a bed in a room by herself.  Her bottom half was covered with a white sheet.  An IV pole stood next to her, next to a heart monitor that displayed a consistent, hill and valley readings.  Numbers were also displayed, blinking and changing back and forth between 95 to 96.

  The window shimmered again, and he heard a small click.  The woman on the bed looked toward him at the sound.  He rose and walked around his desk toward the window.  He reached out to touch it and it opened slightly.

  “Hello,” his mother called from the bed.  “Is someone at the door?”

  Mark pushed the window farther and stepped through it.  His foot hit the floor and he turned toward the opening.  He was now looking at the back of an off-white door.  He closed it.  Before turning toward his mother, he looked down at himself to see he was now wearing a blue, striped tie over a white button down shirt, covered in a long, white coat.  He took a deep breath and slowly turned around.

  “You’re not my doctor,”  she said to him.

  “No, I’m not, Mrs. Morrison,“  Mark started to speak before he knew what he was going to say.

To be continued…

Dear Readers – Today, I am beginning a new story for you that i titled “Changes” but i just wanted to tell you that it is a working title and it might change. I hope you like it! – Greg

Mark Morrison pulled into his driveway after a quick trip to the store on the corner of Larimore Road and Trampe Avenue that everyone simply called the Little Store.  He grabbed the plastic bag from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car.  After closing the car door, he paused and patted the hood as was his habit, to thank the vehicle for getting him home safe.  He turned to look at his home.  It was a two story house built by the original owner, Cecil Burgos, in 1936.    His family was the third to call the house, home.  The house was centered on two acres of land that was surrounded by trees atop a small hill that slid down to a small pond from the backyard.  It was the very last house at the back of the small neighborhood and it also seemed to be the tallest because of the hill it stood on.  The house is fronted with red bricks featuring a rounded front door next to a chimney stack and a large, square, living room window on its right.  To the left of the front door was the wing that had two bedrooms, one in front of the other.  A short sidewalk led to two steps onto the porch that ran across the front of the house.  What sold him on the house was the circle window on the second floor.  It seemed small on the outside but in the room it was placed in, it appeared to be a huge opening into the world it looked out on.  He walked up the sidewalk and entered his home.

  “Honey, I’m back,”  Mark said as he walked into and through the living room, through the dining room and into the kitchen.  A short, petite woman stood at the sink rinsing a skillet .  She leaned down to place it into the dishwasher that was next to it.  He smiled.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked as she stood and turned to face him.

  He continued smiling as he looked at his wife of forty years.  She pretty much looks the way she did when he had first met her on his first day of college.  This blond beauty had walked down a stairway and smiled at him as he started up the stairs.  She had him at that moment.  Her smile is bright white and her eyes a dazzling blue and her hair was still blond as that first day but in a much shorter style.  He walked to her and hugged her.

  “I was only looking at you, Terri” he said to her. “Only you.”

  “You’re weird,” Terri smiled at him and pushed away from him.  She turned to the counter and looked into the bag he had set there when he came into the room.  “You need more to do than to bother me since you have retired.”

  “Well, I could vacuum again.”

  “No, I meant you need a hobby,” she said as she emptied the bag of tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, celery, and a single cucumber.  “Why not take up writing?  You always talked about that if you had more time you would do some of that.  Why don’t you go into Marie’s room…”

  “You mean the office,” he interrupted her as he leaned against the counter beside her.

  “Okay, the office, and start to write.”

  “What should I write about?” Mark asked as she turned to the refrigerator and started to place the items inside it.

  “I don’t know,” Terri shut the door and looked at him.  “Just go do it and stay out of my way.”

She pushed him out of the kitchen. 

  Mark walked to the living room and sat down in his recliner.  He reached and grabbed his reading glasses and newspaper from the side table.  He turned the pages but couldn’t focus on the words, so he folded it back up and replaced it on the table.  He grabbed the remote and clicked on the television that hung above the fireplace.  It sprang into life to the last channel it was on, something on Investigation Discovery.  He pressed the Guide button on the remote and found that it was an episode of Deadly Women. Maybe he could write a murder mystery he thought as he stared at the screen.  Nah, that would be pretty hard to do.  He moved the channel button and the screen changed to the History channel.  He pushed it again and it fell on SyFy.  He couldn’t remember the name of the movie that was on, but he watched it for a few minutes and finally turned it off.  He reached for his cell phone to dial his daughter but remembered that she was at work and she had already told him not to call her there.  She also added that he was not even supposed to text her during working hours.  He groaned out loud.

  “Go upstairs to your office!” Terri yelled from the kitchen.

  Mark rose from his chair and went into the dining room stopping just inside the entryway to the door that was on his right.  He opened it to reveal a stairwell that went upward to the second floor.  He started up the stairs and the aroma of cedar began to surround him.  He loved that smell and was always grateful to Mr. Burgos for using cedar in the rooms upstairs.  He turned slightly to his left and stepped onto the floor at the top of the stairs.  He walked along a rail, back in the direction he had started, turned left again at another corner, and stood at the bedroom door that his two sons, Michael and Samuel, Mike and Sam, had shared.  He smiled and started toward the door in front of him.  It was the door to Marie’s room.  He turned the doorknob and walked in.

  Mark’s mind was ready to see Marie’s bed reach out toward him from beneath the circle window, but a desk stood in its place.  A green hooded bankers lamp stood at the left hand corner of it and it was pointed toward a closed laptop.  Beside the desk, on a corner table, a printer waited to be used.  A mesh mid-back desk chair, just for him, was tucked beneath the desk.  The desk was built by his wife and her Dad when she was a kid.  It was perfect for him to use in his office.  He walked across the circular area rug that his wife had thrown there so she couldn’t hear him pacing across the wooden floor every day and pulled the chair from beneath the desk and sat down. 

  He looked out the circle window across the roofs of the houses of the neighborhood.  The old oak and elm trees reached higher than those rooftops providing shade on the lawns below them.  It was a bright sunny day and the sky was a high, pale blue with streams of wispy clouds stretching out high above the neighborhood.  Mark smiled because he decided what he would write.

  He looked away from the window and opened the laptop.  It blinked on and it asked him for his password.  He typed it in and waited for it to do its startup routine and when the desktop screen displayed the latest picture of his three grandchildren, he grabbed the mouse and right-clicked it.  The flyout menu appeared and he selected New to initiate another flyout menu.  He selected Word Document and waited again.  When the page appeared, he began to type; “It was a dark and stormy the night I was born sixty-five years ago, my dear children, and this is everything you ever wanted to know about me.  Well, then again, maybe not.”

To be continued…

“Your Mom and brother will be attending your fund raiser tonight, Molly,” Dad said as he drove Molly and her friends to school.

  “I know Dad,” Molly said rolling her eyes.

  “So guys, are you going to give me an advance clue to your case?” he asked.

  “It was me,” Harold said from the back seat.

  “No, it is me,” Bev yelled from the seat beside him.

  “You are both wrong,” June said from her seat next to Bev.  “It is me.”

  “There, Dad,” Molly turned in her seat next to him.  “Someone in this car might have done it.”

  They all laughed as he turned into the school’s parking lot.

  It is four o’clock in the afternoon on the first Saturday in April.  The gym was again the location of another school fund raiser that begins at 6:00.  The four friends walked toward the front door.  They were all dressed alike, black slacks, matching jackets, white shirts, and black ties.  Harold hurried ahead of the girls and opened the door for them to walk through before him.

  “What’s wrong with you?” June asked him as she walked by.

  “Yeah,” Bev stated as she followed June into the lobby.

  Molly stopped in front of him and simply said, “Thank you.”

  Harold shrugged and walked in with her and said,” I was holding it opened for you anyway.”

  The lobby was empty, but sounds were coming from the inside the gym.  In front of the gym entrance, the remainder of The Whodunnit Club was waiting for them.  They all were dressed the same, including Miss Marvel, who smiled at them when they joined the group.

  “Hi guys,” she said.  “Well, is everybody sufficiently nervous?  I am.”

  The group laughed.  Jason actually had combed his hair and he looked like a grown up to Molly.  Carol colored her hair a deep dark red and it was perfect for her outfit.

  “You colored your hair,” Harold said to her.  “Looks nice.”

  “What are we waiting for?”  Ted asked.  “Don’t we have a lot of work to do to set up?”

  “About that,” Miss Marvel said.  “We have a little help from the Letter People Clubs, the Cooking Club and the Drama Club.  Mrs. Young is making sure everything is exactly right. They all wanted to help since we solved the Photo Booth case earlier this year.  All we have to worry about is entertainment.”

  The lobby door opened, and Detective Tracy walked in.  He was dressed like the rest of them, black suit , white shirt, and black tie, except he also wore a black hat.  He stopped and stood by Miss Marvel.  Molly was sure she was right about them.  They did turn out to be a couple.  She looked at them as they stood together.  Miss Marvel was taller than the detective as he is only as tall as her shoulders.  She was wearing high heel shoes though.  They looked cute together.

  “Hello, Club,” the detective greeted them.  “Ready for your big night to raise a lot of money for the school and your special charity, Mrs. Young’s family.  I heard you sold out.”

  “We did,” Bev told him.  “We had a maximum of twenty tables of ten to start with, but we added ten more tables because of the demand.  At $10 per person, that’s about…”

  “$3000.00,” Jason completed her sentence.

  “Yeah, and how are we going to be servers for all of those tables and all of those people when there is only nine of us?  And we also are the entertainment?” Ted asked.

  “I told you, we have help,” Miss Marvel said.  “Let’s go inside, shall we?”

  Detective Tracy held open the door and they entered the gym.  Molly was the last one to enter and she paused to take in all of the activity going on around her.  The long rectangular tables of the cafeteria were arranged around the room in five sections of six tables.  There were three sections nearest the stage and the two remaining sections behind them.  The six tables in each section were arranged in two rows and angled toward a center aisle.  The tables were decorated with alternating blue and gold tablecloths, the school colors.  Mrs. Young was supervising volunteers as they placed flower vases on the tables.  Each flower vase also contained a flag with a large black number on it.  Everybody in the room is dressed like them in black suits, white shirts, and black ties.  Molly was excited to see Mr. Eichenberger’s band was setting up on stage.  They were dressed in the same outfits as they were, too.  Mr. Dalton looked up when they entered the room and waved to her.  She waved back.

  Behind the seating area, five tables were set up in one long row.  They also had tablecloths of alternating blue and gold and Miss Heinz was supervising the Cooking Club as they placed salads on the tables.  They, too, were dressed in the same outfits as The Whodunnit Club.

  “Well, you can see how we are getting our help,”  Miss Marvel said to them.  “You will be working with a few others at your serving section.  When it is time for our play, remember there are three acts to our Mystery dinner.  They will be presented after each course, salad, the main course, and dessert.”

  Detective Tracy had left them while Miss Marvel reminded them what was going to happen and had returned.  He started handing each of them a small stack of pamphlets.

  “Take a look at these,” he began telling them.  “Inside, it lists the characters you are playing.  We will give the audience instructions on how they will be participating in the solving of the Mystery when the dinner starts.  When we serve each course, each table will discuss what the scene we acted out tells them to help them solve the case.  You can answer questions during that course as you serve them but do not tell them whodunnit.  After the last scene and after dessert, each table will have to come up with who they think did the crime and then we will reveal it.  We have a prize for the winner or winners.  Remember, one of you will not be returning or seen after the salad course because you are the victim.”

  “Excuse me for interrupting,”  Mrs. Young said as she entered the club’s circle.  “I hope everything looks all right.”

  “It looks lovely,” Miss Marvel said.  “Is your daughter here?”

  “No, not yet.  My husband will be bringing her.  She has to use a wheelchair still, but the pins are going to be removed from her ankle next week.”

  “Oh, that’s good to hear,” Molly said to her.

  “I just wanted to quickly tell you once again, thank you for helping us out.  The portion of the money you receive for your Mystery Dinner fund raiser that you are giving to us, will help us immensely.  Thank you all your kindness even after I did to the others.”

  “Your very welcome,” Miss Marvel assured her.

  “Well, thanks again,” Mrs. Young said and hurried away to supervise someone, somewhere else.

  “As we agreed, we will be working in teams of two,” Miss Marvel said.  “One team, will have three because the victim will be gone after the first course.”

  “Yes, it’s June and Ted, Jason and Carol,” Bev started to remind everyone of their teams. “And me, Harold, and Molly are the last team.”

  “And me and Miss Marvel are another team,” Detective Tracy added.

  “That’s four teams accounted for, so the Letter People and Drama Clubs are heading up the other teams and helping us out, too.  The Cooking Club is, of course, cooking for us,”  Miss Marvel said to them.  “Before we start. I wanted to say how proud of you I am and thank you for making The Whodunnit Club is so special to me.  Have fun tonight and don’t worry if you mess up tonight.  We are doing this for fun so let’s have some fun!  Let’s get everyone together in front of the stage.”

  The group spread out and started telling everyone to come up front.  Miss Marvel climbed the steps onto the stage and approached Mr. Eichenberger.  He then led her to the microphone closest to the front of the stage.  Mr. Dalton started a drumroll and ended it with a crash of a cymbal.  The gym quieted down.

  “Hello everyone,” Miss Marvel began to speak.  “Thank you for helping us out.  First, I want to let you know how much we appreciate your helping us with our club’s fund raiser.”

  A small ripple of applause sounded from the group in front of her, followed by another cymbal clash.

  “I hope you all understand what you are doing as the doors will be opening soon.  We have lists taped to the wall with names of the individuals and their assigned table number if they need help finding them.  Thanks to Mrs. Young for handling all of that for us.”
  Another ripple of applause, followed by another cymbal clash.  Miss Marvel turned to look at Mr. Dalton who shrugged at her and crashed the cymbal again.  Molly laughed to herself.

  “Now as people get seated, try to get a drink order for them as soon as you can, and exactly at 7:00 p.m., I will stop the band, welcome everyone, and introduce the characters of our mystery game and how it is going to work.  After each act, we will serve the meal, one course at a time.  The solution will be announced after dessert.   The way we will do that is, first, collect each table’s guess.  Second, we will announce the criminal and the winning table or, tables, and then the prizes will be presented.  Are there any questions?”

 After act one, and Molly helped serve the main course, she walked around the lobby and entered the gym behind the stage and climbed of few steps to be on it.  She found a chair in the wings, sat down, and watched the band play.  Mrs. Ironside was singing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and she wondered how old that song was.  She laughed to herself as she turned herself to the mystery.  It was a murder mystery and she was the victim.  She wondered if the tables were using Sherlock Holmes powers of observation, deduction, and knowledge to solve her case.  She was hoped some will solve whodunnit.  After all, doesn’t the butler always do it.

The End – April 9, 2021

“Thank you, Ted and Carol,” Miss Marvel stood and walked to the two of them.  “Please sit down.  Molly and Harold, will you please come up and make our final report.”

  Molly stood up and walked to the front of the classroom.  Harold replaced the poster that was there with the one they had created.  Molly waited until Miss Marvel walked around the room to sit in the empty chair next to the slide projector.  The glare from the projector blinded her slightly which, somehow, was relaxing because she couldn’t see everyone looking at her.

  “Molly?” Harold said.  “Don’t you go first?”

  “Yes,” Molly said.  “Sorry.  On our poster, we have placed a chart that shows our Observations and Deductions.  In the story, The Sign of the Four, Sherlock Holmes shares with Dr. Watson that the ideal detective has three qualities and they are, the power of observation, deduction, and knowledge.  Here are our observations. Harold?”

  Harold took a deep breath and said, “After we charted the gym in both configurations, we noted that when the thefts happened everyone was distracted.  First, at the dance, well, it was the first dance at the dance exactly, and then at the play, it was intermission.  Point 2 are the areas where the theft happened.  No one was near the money boxes, meaning they were left unprotected.  Point 3 is that there is no logical way of leaving the event unnoticed.”

  Harold paused and pointed to the next point on the poster.

  “I’ll address these last two observations,”  Molly interrupted Harold.  “Because they were actually mine anyway.  Point 4 – at the play.  When I was leaving the lobby, I noticed that a white sweater was hanging from a chair at the concession table.  As far as we know, we were one of the last ones to leave that night.  Finally, point 5, the brown bag.”

  “Excuse me,” Miss Marvel interrupted from the rear of the room.  “We will get to the brown bag in just a second.  Move on the Deductions, please?”

  “Okay,” Harold said and pointed to the Deductions column that had only two points listed there.  “We deduced that based on our observations that it had to be one of the students or one of the sponsors who were at all the events and the best way to find out who did it is by conducting interviews and collecting fingerprints.  Molly?”

  “That leaves the last quality Sherlock Holmes claims that the ideal detective possesses, knowledge.  What do we know?  We know, through the interviews, where the sponsors and club members were at the time of the crimes.  We also know, through our own observations, where the students and other adults were on the dance floor or watching the play.  We also, know through our fingerprinting activity, that there is only one unknown print that was on all three money boxes.  And…”

  “Excuse me, Molly,” Miss Marvel said as she walked to the front of the room.  “I will take it from here. Please sit down.”

  Molly hurried to her seat and looked around the room.  The adults seated around the walls were closely paying attention, focusing on Miss Marvel.  Except for one of them, who was sitting upright and staring straight ahead.

  “Let me begin by saying we have a suspect.  Let’s start with the brown bag that Molly noted. It was noticed at the dance that the owner was wearing it at the beginning of the dance but not later.  It was also seen at the play on the shoulder of the owner.  It so happens that the owner is the same as the owner of this fingerprint.  We obtained a comparison to the print on the boxes from two other sources, a History book and a recipe card.”

  The slide projector snapped and beside Miss Marvel a fingerprint appeared.  It was definitely a loop, tall thin lines rising and tipping from the left to the right, swooping down and out again. The projector clicked again, and the same print appeared, and it clicked once more displaying the same print.  Miss Marvel stood next to the image and placed her hands in front of her, folding them carefully together.  She waited.

  Molly looked at Bev at the far end of the row who was staring straight ahead.  Molly glanced at Harold, who looked at her and simply shrugged.  Molly turned her head to look at the other end of the row and saw Jason at the far end, turned toward the door and to the person sitting next to it.

  “The only thing we really don’t know is why.  We have an idea, but we don’t really know,” Miss Marvel said casting her eyes toward the floor, waiting.

  “It was me,” a voice quietly said.

  Molly turned her head toward the voice even though she knew who it was and looked at Mrs. Young.  All of the others had turned to face her, too, and like Molly, they all waited.

  “As you know, my daughter has been in the hospital.  She was a passenger in a car crash, and she was injured pretty badly.  It was her ankle and there was surgery and weeks and weeks of therapy.  The medical bills were expensive and even though she has insurance, she still needed help from us.  We needed to eat, too.  We all need to eat , don’t we?  I took the money to feed ourselves,” Mrs. Young said as she began to cry.  “but I felt so guilty and ashamed.  I went to the grocery store just one time and used some of the money to pay for it but that was the only time.”

  The room was so quiet that Molly actually heard the clock on the wall ticking.  Harold turned his head forward and June reached out and placed her hand on his arm.  Molly smiled.

  “How much money is left?” Principal Marty asked her.

  “Most of it, around $800 or so,”  Mrs. Young said as she reached into her bag and pulled out a roll of money held together with a rubber band. “I couldn’t leave it from my sight.  I am so sorry for what I did, and I am ready for to face the consequences.”

  Mrs. Young leaned forward in her chair and burst into tears.  The Whodunnit Club members squirmed in their seats, uncomfortable being around an adult crying so hard that no one noticed Detective Tracy slowly rising from his seat and walking toward her.  He stopped in front and Mrs. Young looked up at him.

  “Mrs. Young, Bethany,” Miss Marvel said as she walked to stand next to Detective Tracy.  “It’s going to be all right.”

  “Yes, it is,” Principal Marty spoke up and reached out, grabbing Mrs. Young’s hand.  “After all, it is a school matter.  Right, Detective?”

To be continued…